Friends of Guasa

Looking for some experience with a grassroots NGO? No time to travel? Anyone can be a Friend of Guasa! We are looking for people with all kinds of skills and experiences

FAQs

What is a 'Friend of Guasa'?

Quite simply – it’s anyone who wants to donate their time and skills to help Guasa, whatever your availability and talents may be.Some of our ‘friends’ are former volunteers, others are members of Supporting Guasa and others are people like you who want to lend a hand on a casual basis.

How does it work?

It’s really simple. Just sign up and you can start! You’ll receive emails with suggested tasks which you can sign up to. So, if you have some free time and the skills to complete it you can put your name down. Busy week? That’s fine. You choose when to help. If you are looking to make a more regular contribution, let us know when you sign up and what you might be interested in.

What sort of work could I do?

The sort of things we might ask for help on include: editing and researching items for our newsletter, updates for our social media platforms, photo editing, researching Dominican news stories, project development, help with our website, advertising volunteer recruitment and the blog, writing blogs about the Dominican Republic, translation (especially Swedish, Spanish, English), fundraising and/or grant applications and helping us find new members

Why does Guasa need 'Friends'?

Everyone who works for Guasa is a volunteer, whether it’s the people who run it, the volunteers on the ground or the Dominicans that are involved in Guasa. We all have jobs, families and lives and we appreciate any additional help we can get. This also means we understand the need to fit any help you offer around a time that suits you. It’s what we do too.

You don’t need to be an expert on the Dominican Republic, a fluent Spanish speaker or a Twitter genius – just someone who is interested in helping us from anywhere in the world.

Jade Cassidy

Jade began her time with Supporting Guasa in spring 2012 and worked through until the fall. She has been a great asset to the organisation, helping design and create member newsletters, interview volunteers, fundraise and assisting with all areas of project support for both the English and girls project.

Simon Hookins

Simon volunteered with us in Summer 2012 and has worked with us on an ad-hoc basis ever since, helping produce newsletters for members and even made this cracking video for volunteer recruitment.

Megan Miles

Megan Miles served as a trustee from 2012-2014 and made an extremely significant contribution to Supporting Guasa, helping with the project design, implementation and evaluation as well as creating a volunteer guide and helping run the organisation in general.

Eva Pérez Jabato

Eva has done some amazing work for Supporting Guasa – collecting hundreds of books to ship to the DR, which we used to set up a small rural library, and recruiting lots of Spanish members.

Irka Stephania Mota Gonzales

After feedback about the level of support volunteers wished to have in the Dominican Republic we started to nominate someone from the village to be a local Volunteer Support Officer. Irka provided support to our summer volunteer, Nina in summer 2014.

Walquiria Santana Perez

Walquiria lives in Guasa and she proved herself invaluable working alongside Maggie on the girl’s project in 2013 helping to design and carry out session plans.

Margaret Federici

Maggie began working with us in Summer 2013 when she developed the girl’s project. She proved to be invaluable to the projects and carried them out with great diligence and care. She helps out with planning the projects during the summer and is always on hand to offer advice.

Johannes Tveitan

Johannes has been helping Supporting Guasa since the beginning. He’s always around to assist with technical support to keep the website up and running.

Lena Dijnér

Lena has been a great friend to Guasa! She was a trustee in our first year and has helped out ever since in all areas but most notably with recruiting members and some impressive fundraising efforts including a cross country skiing adventure.

Dina

Dina volunteered with Simon, Logan and Jade in summer 2012 on the girls and English project and on her return helped Supporting Guasa by fundraising.

Nina

Nina volunteered with us in summer 2014 and has helped us out with maintaining contact with key stakeholders in the village.

Logan Davies

Logan volunteered with us in summer 2012 and has done a great job raising money for Supporting Guasa.

We are a grassroots NGO working in a Dominican village and its municipality. Our work primarily focuses on sustainable education and gender relations.